ORIENT CRAFT LTD THROUGH ITS DIRECTOR NAMELY SUDHIR DHINGARA Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER LABOUR COURT(I) UTTAR PRADESH , GHAZIABAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Sri S.A. Siddique, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Subedar Mishra, learned counsel for the respondent No. 2, who has filed a counter affidavit today.

(2.) This petition is directed against an order dated 18.12.2017 whereby an application to set aside an ex parte award dated 24.10.2016 passed by the Presiding Officer, Labour Court (1), U.P., Ghaziabad in Adjudication Case No. 47 of 2015, has been rejected. The ex parte award also has been challenged by the petitioner. At the hearing, the learned counsel for the petitioner has confined his challenge to the impugned order dated 18.12.2017 passed by the Labour Court, rejecting the application to set aside the ex parte award dated 24.10.2016 on the understanding that in the event the restoration application is allowed here or upon remand, the ex parte award would go. It has been pointed out by learned counsel for the petitioner that the legal representative, appearing on his behalf, was an employee of the petitioners going by the name of Sri Anil Kumar Singh, who attended proceedings before the Court from 11.05.2015. Sri Anil Kumar Singh without informing the petitioner absented from proceedings before the Labour Court on 09.07.2016, in consequence of which an ex parte award dated 24.10.2016 came to be passed. All this happened without the petitioners' knowledge as they had reposed faith in Sri Anil Kumar Singh. The ex parte award was published on 14.12.2016, and it was served upon the petitioner on 19.01.2017 through a security guard, when the petitioner company came to know for a first about all the ex parte proceedings and the ex parte result. For the first time, they also came to know thereafter, that after 09.07.2016, Anil Kumar Singh had not appeared.

(3.) A recall application was filed on 23.01.2017, seeking recall of the ex parte award, and to restore the Adjudication Case to its original file and number, with opportunity to the petitioner to defend. The recall application has come to be rejected by means of the impugned order dated 18.12.2017.